Swachh Bharat Mission, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, or Clean India Mission is a country-wide campaign initiated by the Government of India on 2 October 2014 to eliminate open defecation and improve solid waste management and to create Open Defecation Free (ODF) villages. The program also aims to increase awareness of menstrual health management. It is a restructured version of the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan which was launched by Congress in 2009 that failed to achieve its intended targets due to rampant corruption and indecisive leadership.
PM Modi launches Swachh Bharat Mission.
One of the posters from cartoon based campaign by MCG drawn by the cartoonist Shekhar Gurera
Manisha Koirala at Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in November 2014
Beach cleaning robot Swachh Bot, made by a maker community in Chennai
Open defecation is the human practice of defecating outside rather than into a toilet. People may choose fields, bushes, forests, ditches, streets, canals, or other open spaces for defecation. They do so either because they do not have a toilet readily accessible or due to traditional cultural practices. The practice is common where sanitation infrastructure and services are not available. Even if toilets are available, behavior change efforts may still be needed to promote the use of toilets. 'Open defecation free' (ODF) is a term used to describe communities that have shifted to using toilets instead of open defecation. This can happen, for example, after community-led total sanitation programs have been implemented.
Indiscriminate waste dumping and open defecation (from animals), Shadda, Cap-Haitien, Haiti
Evidence of open defecation along a riverbank in Bujumbura, Burundi
Child defecating in the open in a canal in the slum of Gege in the city of Ibadan, Nigeria
Open defecation, Tirin Kowt bazaar, Afghanistan